


To lose and share

by fangirling-feels (xGwenxVeerx)



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Reader is missing an arm in this, This is the longest thing i have ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-07-05
Packaged: 2018-07-21 17:13:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7396351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xGwenxVeerx/pseuds/fangirling-feels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, life and your body can be a huge pain in the ass. And sometimes, it helps you find others feel the same as you</p>
            </blockquote>





	To lose and share

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, gals and nonbinary pals! I hope that you will enjoy this! I first uploaded this to tumblr so if you recognise it from somewhere it's probably from there. Also, this is so freaking long but whenever I look back on it I am still very proud about it so I hope that you will all like it :)

According to her parents she was born with an underdevelopped left arm. They had to amputate it to give her a full chance at life, even if that meant without a limb. Her parents always told her that it was better than living with something that was there but could not work.  
Now, she just wished she still had something there. Meeting new people was always scary and she was constantly afraid people were judging for something that she couldn’t change.   
And having to apply for a job ment seeing and meeting new people everyday, and she didn’t know if she was ready for that.   
It was supposed to be one of the best chances in the world, heck it probably was the best one she would ever be offered so she couldn’t fuck it up. At all.  
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to take this chance. She had loved science ever since she grew up and getting the chance to do it for the whole day, man, that was something she could never ignore.  
And now she was here, standing in front of what soon could be her new workplace, feeling nervous about everything.  
There was a helpdesk in the lobby and [Y/N] was happy that there was one, knowing that if there wasn’t she would get hopelessly lost.   
She walked up to it, ignoring the looks she was getting by the few people who were there. For a place with so many people working there - so was her told - it seemed to be pretty empty. Most of the people would be in the building, busy working of course. She mentally facepalmed herself with her missing hand, not wanting to move her right arm to look even weirder than she already did.  
“Can I help you with something?”  
The lady at the desk seemed like a nice girl, taking a look at her - missing - left arm but not saying a word about it. [Y/N] was glad that she didn’t.   
“I have an appointment with, sorry,” she half mumbled, knowing that the girl probably didn’t hear her as she tried to find the little note she had written for herself. “dr. Banner, but I don’t know where I need to go to.”  
“What is your name, miss?”  
“[Y/L/N], [Y/N] [Y/L/N].”  
The woman started to type on the computer standing in front of her and it didn’t take her long before she could answer her question.  
“Take the elevator to level eight, that’s were he is supposed to be right now. If you cannot find him, just ask. Good luck!”  
She thanked her as she picked up her backpack, making her way to the elevator. It wasn’t until it was actually moving up that she realised she still didn’t know one thing. If she couldn’t find dr. Banner, who did she need to ask?

She never found out as she almost ran into him when stepping out of the elevator. Turned out that he was walking around with his colleague. She later found out it was Tony Stark himself, something she shouldn’t have been so surprised about given the fact that she was in the Avengers tower.  
“I’m sorry!” She immidiatly exclaimed, noticing the many papers that had fallen down.   
“Don’t be, we should have payed more attention. I’ll take these with me since I have to go anyways.”  
He took the papers and walked away, leaving her on her own with the person she was hopefully going to work for.  
“I assume you are [Y/N] [Y/L/N]? I’m doctor Banner, if you could follow me?”  
She nodded quietly, agreeing that it was in fact her. She had her right arm over her torso, feeling nervous about what was about to come. Luckily dr. Banner noticed this.  
“You don’t have to feel insecure you know. Me and Tony saw some of the things you achieved and I have got to say that I was excited to hear that you wanted to work here.”  
She couldn’t really believe what she heard him say and she was at a loss of words when she walked into something that looked like his office.   
“So what my plan was is that you can come to work here and have a chance to develop projects with the supplies we have here in our access. Details will be in your contract and you can always come if you don;t understand something. All we need from you is a-”  
“Yes.”  
She didn’t let him finish as her energy level had started to rise from the moment that he started to speak. Not only did this look like her dreamjob, it also sounded like it and it was hard to say no to.  
Dr. Banner turned to her with a grin, holding a stack of papers and a pen in his hands.  
“Well then, do you want to sign your contract?”

[Y/N] had been working at the tower for a couple of months and her enthousiasm had only grown ever since. She was now working on a project for making bullets with a set of chemicals in them that could knock out everyone getting in touch with them.   
“[Y/N], do you understand anything involving metal limbs?”  
She looked up with a questioning gaze at Tony who walked into her workspace, wondering where the odd question came from. She didn’t know if he was being serious or just joking around and given the fact that she had no left arm to smack him with she just decided to stay in her chair.  
“Obviously not much, why?”  
Tony looked at her before he realised what she meant by it. He sometimes seemed to forgot that she was missing a part of her body and that could really frustrate her. A small grin appeared on his lips and [Y/N] was not sure if she should even listen to the words that were coming out of his mouth.  
“Honestly, just wondering. There is a guy coming in and I wondered if you could help?”  
“With metal limbs? I know stuff about science Tony, not the things you’re dealing with.”  
“Believe me, I need you on this.”  
She looked at him with a weird expression on her face, but she decided not to comment on it. Besides, maybe this could help her getting in touch with different areas at the lab. For now she was only working on anything science related - not that she could complain though - and it would be great for her to take this opportunity. She sighed, standing up from her chair, abandoning her research. It wasn’t as if she was making big progress either. Maybe it was something good for her to not be focused on it completly.  
“Great! If you could follow me.”  
She laughed at the entousiasm of Tony as she followed him, wondering where they were walking to and what he was planning.   
They reached a door that seemed to lead towards a closed of room. [Y/N] didn’t know what to think of it, seeing no windows in the room whatsoever. She decided to stand still in front of the door, not knowing if she should trust this. However when Tony opened the door [Y/N] could see a guy sitting on something that looked like a fancy chair. He was sitting with his right arm to the door and at first [Y/N] couldn’t understand why she was asked to go along with Tony. That was until the strange guy turned towards the door and she could make out something shiny on his left arm.  
Meatal. She didn’t even need to look more at his arm to figure that out. Angrily she turned towards Tony who was standing right behind her.  
“You want me to help a guy with a metal arm? With a left metal arm? Is this just some joke for you?”  
“What’s a joke to him right now?”  
She turned to the strange guy now, not caring that she didn’t know him, not caring about the fear that would normally rush through her upon meeting a new person.   
“I believe that he thinks of this situation as some stupid joke. To let a girl with a missing left arm help a guy who has also no fucking left arm but hey, guess what? Surprise! He has one, a metal one, can you believe it? Good thing to use that when there is somebody around who is insecure about their own arm!”  
She was downright angry at everything, not believing that this was something Stark had seriosuly thought of.   
“I was actually wondering if you could be here for some support for Bucky.”  
“Support for what?”  
“Doll, you are not the only one feeling insecure about their left arm, you know that right?”  
She just stood still in the room, her right hand formed into a fist as she tried to find her words again. The moment she saw the guy sitting in the room she just assumed that he was confident enough to not care about anything at all. At least, that was the aura that surrounded him and she had never guessed that he too could be insecure about something that he had lost in his life. She looked away, not knowing if she should stay in the room at all.   
“Know any way to take this off? That way I can find out the techniques of the arm and try to repair it.”  
[Y/N] noticed the discomfort in the guy’s eyes, she had heard his name but She couldn’t remember it correctly, having too many things running through her mind at the moment. She sat down at the chair, trying not to discomfort the guy any more than the situation already did. She watched him slowly rip off the arm and throw it to Tony, who caught it but almost let it fall on the ground again.  
“Now you have to make a new one Stark.”  
She smiled at the words he said, having the feeling that this guy shared some more things with her than she originally thought.  
“Of course Barnes, now don’t turn all sassy on me or I might as well not finish it at all.”  
[Y/N] looked at the guy next to her.  
“At least you won’t be the only one walking without an arm.”  
He turned his head away, not daring to look her in the eyes.   
“How long.”  
“What?”  
She looked at him, trying to figure out what he meant to say but not finding anything as he did not dare to look at her. Instead his gaze was fixed on the door as if he wanted to leave as quickly as he could.  
“How long have you been walking around without your arm?”  
“See, that’s something I can answer!”  
She felt her normal self shine through, the one who didn’t care about her appearance, the one who said anything that came on her mind. Barnes turned around, looking at her face but quickly turning it again. He was afraid, she could immidiatly tell that. Even though he didn’t need to be.  
“Well, according to my parents, I was born with an underdevelopped left arm. To give me the biggest chance in life without,” she gestured towards her arm, or rather the lack thereof, “it, they decided to amputate it when I was merely a few weeks old. I have lived my whole life without the damn thing yet I still feel insecure about it.”  
She looked away from him, somehow feeling vulnerable even though she didn’t need to. Heck, she just told a guy she had just met her story that most of her dearest friends had never even heard. Still, it felt weird to talk about it, and it took her a few seconds before she spoke again.   
“I guess that that’s what makes us human. People would have guessed that after years of walking without it you start to feel comfortable with the situation. Flash news, you don’t.”  
She looked up at him, trying to look in his eyes but finding that it wasn’t really helping her continue with her story. The room was quiet and even Tony had stopped working on the metal arm. Either that or he had left the room. [Y/N] didn’t know and didn’t want to stop anything that was going on in the room just to check if the complete asshole of a scientist was still in the room. She looked down at her legs, a small smile forming on her face.   
“I guess that when I walked in this room and saw you and that you had a metal arm, I just freaked out. Because even though we are kind off the same, both having no arm, you were still better than me. You have a replacement for it, I don’t, and in just a millisecond when I arrived here my brain decided to think for itself.”  
It was quiet in the room, the only sound to be heard came from Tony trying to find out how the arm worked.   
“I fell off a train.”  
His confession was sudden and [Y/N] didn’t know how she had to react to it.   
“I fell off a moving train into the snow, somehow surviving but I lost my left arm. I got found by HYDRA and they gave me a prosthetic.”  
He looked at her as she was trying to find her words again to answer his story. She had heard of HYDRA before when she started working in the lab - she wasn’t one to show interest in these kind off subjects before her job - but to think that this guy had been captured by them was something she couldn’t understand. And even to think of what they did to him, gods, how could he still walk around without constantly feeling terrified.  
Maybe he was. Maybe he was constantly affraid of everything surrounding him and even while they were holding this conversation he could be hoping that nothing would happen.   
“That stupid thing lying there,” he motioned towards the metal on the workbench, “reminds me of everything that they have done to me, everything that they made me do. It’s constantly with me and I can’t get rid of it. Even when it’s gone I am left staring at the place where it used to be and we are back at the beginning.”  
He looked away from her but she kept her eyes on him.  
“I think that it’s a pretty badass left arm to be honest. No matter what the backstory is.”  
The voice of Tony suddenly interfered, taking her by surprise.  
“If you want to, and when I have figured out the technology of this damn thing I can make one for you?”  
She shook her head, not feeling the need to suddenly have something she had lived without for most of her life. She turned back to the man next to her, noticing that his eyes were fixed on her again.  
“Plus, we now have something to bond over.”  
She noticed the puzzled look on his face as he tried to understand what she meant by her words.  
“We both hate anything that has to do with our left arm. I mean, that’s a pretty cool thing to use as a start for our friendship.”  
“Well, I don’t want to get inbetween the sappy moment you are having but I’m done here, so you both can leave and go do what you want to do. Continue research, stalk the others, I don’t know.”  
“And what about my arm?”  
“I have to take that to the lab, you know that right.”  
“And for how long did you know that you had to go to the lab with his arm?”  
“For about the whole time.”  
The sitting couple groaned in unison, realising that what had just happened could have been avoided the whole time, leaving out awkward confessions that didn’t need to be made.  
“Hey, don’t look at me!”  
“Why wouldn’t we? Tony if I hadn’t been here I would have made more progress on the research so I can finish the project earlier!”  
He chuckled, glancing at the couple in front of them.  
“You could have left right after I got his arm you know. Both of you. It was your decision to stay here and talk. Both of you, so don’t look at me to blame for something that you did yourself.”  
She stood next to the chair, not knowing what to do when she watched Tony slowly walk out of the room.   
“Besides, the reason why I needed you actually helped. Metal man didn’t run away, didn’t talk or not give me his arm at all. A big thank you for that!”  
With that being said, Tony opened the door and quickly closed it again, trapping [Y/N] with the gut whose name she seemed to completly forget - honestly she did hear it but it didn’t stick with her at all - in the room.  
There was an uncomfortable silence where she didn’t know what to do or say, untill his voice - this time a little bit more steady and sure than it was when she started talking to him - replaced the silence.  
“I actually enjoyed talking to you.”  
She turned around, noticing that the steady voice did not match the nervous man in front of her now.   
“To be completly honest with you, so did I. Never thought I would spill this much information with a stranger though,” she chuckled at this, “but I am glad I did. It really helped me.”  
“Yeah, it did.”  
There it was again, the silence pressing on both of them, pushing them into asking what the other one didn’t dare to do.  
“You, uh, you want to go and grab some coffee? I mean, I don’t really have anything to do right now.”  
“Sure, if you want to.”  
“Why else would I ask it?”  
He laughed at her reply,knowing that he could have expected something like that.  
“I’m [Y/N] by the way, just realised I both haven’t said it nor has anyone else while all of this happened, unless either Tony or Bruce decided to gossip about me outside of my job.”   
He laughed at her words, starting to like this girl more and more with the second.  
“I’m Bucky, but I guess that you had heard Tony say that already.”  
She smiled, taking in the feeling that went along with his name. It was an odd one, but one that made her smile nonetheless.  
They both walked out of the room, on their way to the nearest Starbucks. Both knowing what it is to lose something so close to them, now having someone to share it with.

“Why did you even think that having them together in one room would be a good idea?”  
Tony looked at his Science Bro, a wide gron on his face that didn’t want to go away.  
“Well, metal arm was moping around the tower for quite a while and [Y/N] was drowning herself in research. And since they both miss something, I mean, I jus-”  
“So based on their outer appearance you decided to try to couple them? You’re an idiot Tony, you know that right.”  
Tony turned around, back to work on the metal lying on his desk, not caring about whay Bruce had to say.  
“But it did work though.”


End file.
